Entrepreneurial Traits: What Makes a Successful Entrepreneur?

Are you looking to join the over 25 million Americans who are already entrepreneurs?

You’ve made a smart decision. Entrepreneurship isn’t great just because it’s a key part of the American dream. As an entrepreneur, you’ll be your own boss and you’ll stand a great chance of creating a lot of wealth for yourself

Entrepreneurial Traits: What Makes a Successful Entrepreneur?

But what makes a great entrepreneur?

It’s a well-established fact that entrepreneurship isn’t the easiest of endeavors in the United States. What separates those who succeed from those who fail? Simple. Entrepreneurial traits!

To be a successful entrepreneur, you need a combination of the right skills and personal attributes. Read on as we tell you the traits you need to excel in entrepreneurship.

Join Our Small Business Community

Get the latest news, resources and tips to help you and your small business succeed.

Undying Passion

If you listen to some of the world’s top entrepreneurs speaking, you won’t fail to hear them say that in entrepreneurship, passion is everything. It’s this passion that keeps you doing what you do even when the odds are stacked against you.

Being passionate doesn’t just mean loving your business. It also means being passionate about entrepreneurship as a whole.

You see, it’s one thing to passionate about your business and it’s another to be passionate about entrepreneurship. When it’s the latter, you’ll always get back into business even when your first venture doesn’t succeed.

Innovative

What first comes to mind when you think of Elon Musk?

OK, if you’re anything like most people, you obviously love the tweets and the dank memes. But beyond that, you’re thinking of a serial entrepreneur who’s super innovative.

A man setting foot in Mars might seem like a distant dream right now, but considering Musk’s innovative prowess, you’d be naïve to write off the possibility of humanity colonizing mars.

This brings us to one of the most important qualities of an entrepreneur: innovation.

The difference between an entrepreneur and a person who isn’t is the former can create solutions to everyday problems. When your innovation leads to the development of a product or service that solves a problem, you’ll be in a better position to create a successful business.

Excellent Communicator

There probably are tens of successful entrepreneurs who aren’t excellent communicators, but this doesn’t in any way mean communication skills aren’t useful. In fact, they’re vital.

Whether you start out as a solo entrepreneur or not, you’re always going to need to reach out to other people. You’ll be in constant communication with your customers and employees, for instance.

You need both verbal and written communication skills to be a successful entrepreneur. Verbal skills come in handy when you’re interacting with people one on one.

You need written communication skills when creating business documents and conversing via email or text. Did you know that one of your responsibilities as a business owner is to write a mission statement?

Without strong communication skills, you certainly won’t be in a position to create a clear, coherent, and compelling mission statement. On that note, be sure to learn more about what it takes to write a winning mission statement.

People Skills

You need communication skills to interact with the people around you, but you need to do more than just communicate. You need to create rapport and build strong relationships with them. To do this, you need great people skills.

There are entrepreneurs who thrive when they’re all alone, but even if you’re this type, you still need to interact with people. Building a business means at some point you will put together a team of employees.

You need to strike positive relationships with these people if you want to make the most of them.

Patience

If you’re not a patient person, it’s unlikely that you’ll succeed in entrepreneurship.

There are several ways your patience could be tested as an entrepreneur. One, building a successful business takes time. Yes, there are businesses that start out with a bang and achieve wild success, but those are few and far between.

It can take several months or even years before a business can achieve profitability. Uber, for instance, isn’t profitable yet despite the fact that it has a multi-billion-dollar valuation and it’s been in existence for over a decade.

Without adequate patience reserves, it’s not easy to wait for a business to turn profitable. You could easily give up on it.

Two, some processes can be long and tedious. For example, the average time for getting a patent is 25 months. You need the patience to wait and keep at it even when things seem to be taking forever.

Self-Drive and Determination

You’re going to run into numerous obstacles in your entrepreneurship journey. Will you be able to get up and keep going when something knocks you down?

Without self-drive and determination, doing so will be easier said than done. You don’t want to give up on your business after putting so much sweat into it, right? A strong self-drive enables you to stay focused and truthful to the course, however bleak the future might seem.

There are days when you’ll need to put in long hours. Without determination, how are you going to burn the midnight oil?

Develop and Nurture These Entrepreneurial Traits

Entrepreneurship is a challenging but deeply rewarding journey. However, for every entrepreneur who finds success, there is a handful that fails and gives up on their dream. Often, what makes the difference is the qualities an entrepreneur possesses.

With this guide to entrepreneurial traits, you now have a clear picture of what you need to become successful.

All the best and keep an eye on our blog for more entrepreneurship tips and insights.

_____________________________________________________